Latest posts
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Credit Report Errors: An Official Dispute Record Checklist
How to Dispute a Credit Report Error If you find a mistake on your credit report, you generally need to dispute it twice: once with the credit reporting company (Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion) and once with the furnisher, the business that sent the incorrect information. Keeping a clear, dated record of both disputes is what…
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Unfamiliar Debt Collector Contacted You? How to Verify It’s Real Before You Respond
If someone calls, texts, or mails you about a debt you don’t recognize, stop before you say anything about money. Legitimate debt collectors are required to give you specific written information about the debt. Scammers rely on you skipping that step. This guide walks through exactly what to ask for, what a real collector looks…
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Debt Collection Letters: A Consumer Verification Checklist
What To Do Before You Respond to a Debt Collection Letter Before you pay, dispute, or even discuss a debt collection letter, verify that the collector has given you the required legal information and confirm the debt is actually yours. Federal law requires a collector to send you written “validation information” about the debt, and…
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Identity Theft Recovery: Building an Official Action Record
A scenario worth planning for Maria checks her bank app on a Tuesday and finds two accounts she never opened. She spends the next hour on the phone with her bank, a credit bureau, and the FTC’s identity theft site. By Thursday, a collector calls about one of those accounts. Maria explains what happened, but…
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Civil Rights Complaints: Where to File Discrimination Claims by Category
Where to File a Civil Rights Complaint, by Category Where you file a discrimination complaint depends on what happened and where. Job-related discrimination goes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), housing discrimination goes to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), discrimination at a school goes to the Department of Education’s Office for…
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Lemon Law Basics: What Qualifies, Filing Deadlines and State-by-State Variations
What Lemon Laws Cover Lemon laws are state laws that protect buyers of new vehicles with serious, repeated defects the manufacturer cannot fix after a reasonable number of tries. If your car has a covered problem that keeps coming back despite proper repair attempts, you may be entitled to a replacement vehicle, a refund, or…
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Wage Garnishment: Legal Limits, Exempt Income and How to Challenge Excessive Withholding
How Much of Your Paycheck Can Legally Be Garnished Federal law caps most wage garnishments at 25% of your disposable earnings, or the amount your weekly disposable earnings go over $217.50, whichever number is smaller. Garnishments for child support, alimony, unpaid taxes, and federal student loans follow different, often higher, limits. Some income — like…
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Medical Debt: Patient Rights, Hospital Financial Assistance and Billing Dispute Process
What Are Your Rights on Medical Debt? You have specific federal rights when you get a medical bill: protection from certain surprise out-of-network charges under the No Surprises Act, the right to ask a nonprofit hospital about its financial assistance (charity care) program before you’re sent to collections, and the right to dispute a bill…
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Debt Collection Rights: FDCPA Protections, Cease and Desist Letters and Statute of Limitations
What the FDCPA Covers The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is the main federal law that limits what debt collectors can say or do when they try to collect a debt from you. It bans abusive, unfair, and deceptive collection tactics, gives you the right to demand proof of a debt, and lets you…
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Identity Theft Recovery: Reporting Steps, Credit Freezes and Available Legal Remedies
What to Do the Moment You Suspect Identity Theft Identity theft recovery starts with three actions: contact the companies where fraud happened, place a fraud alert or credit freeze with the credit bureaus, and file a report at IdentityTheft.gov to get a personalized recovery plan. From there, federal law gives you specific rights to dispute…